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Libraries I University of Cambridge, 2008 Networked Tactics for Gender Representation in the News ARCHIfVES by J. Nathan Matias MASSAmu,-Fl S INSTM 'E OF TECHNOLOGY Bachelor of Arts in English Literature SJuB Elizabethtown College, 2006 19 2013 Bachelor of Arts, Honours, Master of Arts, Cantab LiBRARIES I University of Cambridge, 2008 Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 2013 0 2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved. Signature of Author Program in Media Arts and Sciences May 22, 2013 Certified by Ethan Zuckerman Director, MIT Center for Civic Media Principal Research Scientist MIT Media Lab Accepted by I Prof Patricia Maes Associate Academic Head Program in Media Arts and Sciences 2 Networked Tactics for Gender Representation in the News by J. Nathan Matias Bachelor of Arts in English Literature Elizabethtown College, 2006 Bachelor of Arts Honours, Master of Arts, Cantab University of Cambridge, 2008 Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, on May 22, 2013 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 2013 ABSTRACT This thesis presents research on gender disparities in online news, followed with three open source designs that attempt to address those disparities. Open Gender Tracker is a platform that applies automated gender analysis to electronic content sources. FollowBias is a behavioral experiment on the effectiveness of personal trackers to manage the biases of journalists and curators. Passing On uses data and stories to attract and coordinate participants to expand the visibility of women in Wikipedia. These three designs are offered as inspirations for a paradigm of technologies to measure and change women's representation in the news. Thesis supervisor: Ethan Zuckerman Title: Director, MIT Center for Civic Media, Principal Research Scientist MIT Media Lab 3 4 Networked Tactics for Gender Representation in the News by J. Nathan Matias Advisor /Ethan Zuckerman Director, MIT Center for Civic Media Principal Research Scientist MIT Media Lab Reader Tom Steinberg Director, MySociety Reader Kate Crawford Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research New England Visiting Professor, MIT Center for Civic Media 5 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ethan Zuckerman (@ethanz) has been a thoughtful, supportive, and principled advisor, offering context and advice throughout my exploration of civic technology for two years. Tom Steinberg (@steiny) has offered direct and practical design feedback throughout this project and first suggested that I incorporate randomized controlled trials into my research. Kate Crawford (@katecrawford) has offered relevant provocations and constructive suggestions throughout the writing process. Judith Donath (@judithd) doggedly asked important questions that stumped me until I found answers to completely different ones. Irene Ros (@ireneros) of Bocoup has been the best kind of collaborator, sharing encouragement, inspiration, and rock solid code since the very beginning, especially with Open Gender Tracker, which is primarily her work. Sarah Szalavitz (@dearsarah) who first proposed FollowBias, has been remarkably prolific and indefatiguable in our collaborative journey to imagine, create, and evaluate what has become a gorgeous and excellent project. Sophie Diehl has been a talented and capable collaborator on Passing On, creating the beautiful prototypes that inspired it and collaborating closely on this work of meaning and impact. Adam Hyland (@therealprotonk) of Bocoup defined our approach to citizen media platform analysis and developed the Global Name Gender Data project. James Home (@jameshome) took the concept of 3D glasses and crafted a beautiful design for FollowBias. I enjoyed the privilege of implementing his elegant design. Diyang Tang collaborated on the Twitter news quotation project. David Larochelle (@dlarochelle) collaborated on an afternoon hack that turned into my thesis. The Knight Foundation funded Open Gender Tracker through a Prototype Fund grant and has supported helpful conversations throughout my work. Sasha Costanza Chock (@schock) advised my first independent study on this topic and consistently directed me toward principled action grounded in relevant research. Adrienne Debigare (@adebigare) and Chris Marstall (@marstall) of the Boston Globe Globe Labs supported our integration with the Boston Globe API. Alberto Ibarguen (@ibarguen) encouraged this project from its very beginning by sending me an interested Tweet that led me to step out my door on this adventure. Lisa Evans (@objectgroup) collaborated on the study of UK news we produced for the Guardian. Ami Sedghi (@AmiSedhi) and Simon Rogers (@smfrogers) published our series in the Guardian Datablog. 7 Anna Powell-Smith (@darkgreener) provided UK name genders for the Guardian series. Solana Larsen (@solanasaurus) helped us understand Global Voices better. Emily Bell (@emilybell) offered encouragement, advice, and a chance to brainstorm with students from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism school. Sam Meier (@sammeierl2) helped me navigate the feminist blogosphere. Matthew of Binders Full of Women answered questions about the Facebook page. Lynn Cherny (@arnicas) supported data analysis in one of the Guardian posts and inspired the section on women in the book trade. Brian Keegan (@bkeegan) and SJ Klein (@metasj) helped me navigate Wikipedia's contribution requirements. Hanna Wallach (@hannawallach) advised on some of the data analysis. Katie Orenstein (@katieorenst) and Taryn Yaeger shared ongoing conversations and inspiration on The Op Ed Project and what it means for women to be thought leaders. Rahul Bhargava (@rahulbot) worked with me on nytcorpus-ruby, a ruby library for processing the historical New York Times content archive. Charlie De Tar (@cdetar) shared many debugging sessions and feedback about design, consistently encouraging me toward meaningful impact. Evan Sandhaus (@kansandhaus) and Alexis Lloyd (@alexisloyd) of the New York Times provided encouragement and feedback on our use of the New York Times Corpus. Bill Thompson (@billt) at the BBC shared the inspiration of his personal approach to gender on speaker panels. Matt Stempeck (@mstem), Molly Sauter (@mestem), and Kate Darling (@grok_) have been inspiring, witty, and encouraging colleagues online and in the office. All of my other colleagues at the Center for Civic Media: Erhardt Graeff, Catherine D'Ignazio, Lorrie Lejeune, Edward Platt, Leo Burd, Nicole Freedman, Huan Sun, Chris Peterson, Dan Schultz, Denise Cheng, Pablo Rey Mazon, Rogelio Alexandro Lopez, Becky Hurwitz, Andrew Whitacre, Rodrigo Davies, Alexandre Gonclaves, Marco Bani, Willow Brugh, and the Dalek have created a fascinating and supportive community for this work. Except for the Dalek. danah boyd shared helpful advice whose value will continue long after this thesis. Jeff Howe took on some of my writing at The Atlantic so I could finish this thesis. My parents Karin and Jorge Matias continue to encourage and inspire me to do work of principle and empathy. Hannah Eagleson has shared especially kind encouragement, solidarity, and support. Thanks also to committee members of the Davies Jackson Scholarship, who maintain an enduring interest in my life, many years after funding my study at the University of Cambridge. 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 14 2. WOMEN'S REPRESENTATION IN THE MEDIA.................................. 16 2.1 LINKS BETWEEN NEWS COVERAGE AND WOMEN'S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION ......... 16 2.2 EMPLOYMENT DISPARITIES IN NEWSROOMS .......................................................... 17 2.3 COMMON TACTICS TO ADDRESS WOMEN'S REPRESENTATION IN THE NEWS.............. 18 2 .3 .1 R egu latio n ..................................................................................................... 19 2.3.2 Industry Goals............................................................................................... 19 2.3.3 Pressure Campaigns...................................................................................... 19 2.4 RELATING WOMEN'S REPRESENTATION TO STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES................... 20 2.4.1 Book Reviews ............................................................................................... 20 2.4.2 Opinion Writing ............................................................................................. 22 2.5 ONLINE M EDIA ........................................................................................................ 24 2 .5 .1 B log h er............................................................................................................. 2 4 2.5.2 Mommy blogs............................................................................................... 24 2.5.3 Feminist blogs............................................................................................... 25 2.5.4 Wikipedia ...................................................................................................... 25 2.5.5 Global Voices and citizen media.................................................................. 27 3. REPRESENTATION IN NETW ORK S ............................................................... 30 3.1 M EDIA ACTION FOR REPRESENTATION
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